Abstract
This poster and presentation explores La Danza de los Diablos, a traditional afro-indigenous dance from Oaxaca, Mexico, as a culmination of cultural memory and resistance. It draws on personal experiences, oral histories, and sources such as the Florentine Codex to showcase how the dance preserves and transforms African, Indigenous, and Spanish influences. It originates from enslaved Africans praying towards the god Ruja for freedom. It integrates African musical practices, Indigenous practices, and colonial impositions, which result in a hybrid performance that reflects both oppression and resilience. Key musical elements are instruments such as la quijada de burro (donkey jawbone), bote (friction drum), and zapatazos (persuasive stomping). The stomping serves as a reminder that indigenous and African practices do not separate music and dance as mutually exclusive elements of a performance. Costumes and masks further emphasize the impact of colonization in the shifting from African spiritual symbolism to catholic imagery of the devil. In the present day, La Danza de los Diablos continues to be performed in a variety of ways across different regions of Mexico, serving as a cultural celebration and as an act of defiance against erasure. This research highlights how La Danza De los Diablos’s performances are a living archive of resistance and identity by situating the dance within the histories of afro-indigenous survival. The continued performance of La Danza de los Diablos affirms the endurance of marginalized communities that refused to be erased and the necessity of reclaiming suppressed cultural memory.